“Nooooooooooo!!” I yelled, running to my cat.
“IRUSAN!” Hinrika screamed, running to join me. I had a second to wonder what the Faery Queen had just shouted.
My kitty lay still.
Sobbing, I pressed my cheek against his chest. I didn’t feel the fall and rise of his breath.
The other cats ran over, each of them trying to get a paw on their fallen brother.
“No,” Gloom said. “No, this isn’t happening.”
Crying until my eyes blurred, my tears fell onto my stricken cat as I administered CPR. I couldn’t feel a heartbeat. I couldn’t feel his respiration. I pumped gently, counting the beats in my head before I applied pressure again.
No. He’s not dead. He’s not.
“Boss?” Shade said, tears pouring freely down his furry cheeks. “Is he … is Fraidy dead?”
I couldn’t answer. My body broke down into heaving sobs, as my hands flew over my deathly still kitty, trying to find signs of life.
Nothing.
My head shot up to stare at Shields. “You killed him.” I spat the words through clenched teeth.
“Well, yes, Miss. Jenkins, I should certainly hope so,” he said. “I didn’t pay all this money just for Sweet Boy to make friends.” The governor cleared his throat. “But now the hero-play is out of the way, it’s time we finish this off, I think.” He nodded at his golden-scaled creature once more, and Sweet Boy sucked in another few hundred gallons of air in preparation for his final fiery glory.
A deep and cavernous sighing sound filled the chamber. Even Shields turned his head toward the noise. The governor’s beast stopped in his tracks, looking with uncertainty at his creator.
I heard and sensed the unfurling of something large and ancient, followed by a deep and low snarling.
What the …
And although the horror before our eyes didn’t exactly have the stamp of ‘miraculous,’ our next miracle surveyed us from its spot behind the rock ridge.
A pair of eyes, relics from a time long gone, rose above the spiny stand of rock. A dusty, scaled body followed those eyes of fire.
“David!” I yelled, scooping up the inert Fraidy into my arms. The Wyrmrig! The real Wyrmrig!
Shields’ lower jaw fell to the floor. “Not possible,” he muttered. “Not possible.”
The Wyrmrig clawed its way from behind the rock wall until it sat atop the spine of the stone. It eyed the governor and his dragon with its brimstone glare. The Wyrmrig extended his neck and sniffed the air through giant, flaring nostrils, an iridescent shimmer of blue and green just visible beneath the dust of its scales.
Shields’ head swiveled in all directions. He grabbed the arm of his nearest henchman. “Don’t just stand there! Do something!” He shouted, fumbling for his wand, and instructing his dragon to stay close. “Kill it!” The governor shrieked in a frenzied voice. His henchmen lifted their rifles and aimed it at the Wyrmrig’s head. I could see the infrared dot find a spot between the creature’s formidable eyes. David sucked in air, and for a second I thought he was going to turn the goons into a pile of ash, but instead, the dragon released his barbed tail and smacked Shields’ cronies to the far side of the cave in one effortless swoop. I heard them hit the stone wall and slide like a bundle of wet blankets down to the hard floor.
A commotion from Shields and his pet caught my attention. The governor was incanting a strange spell. It was an unfamiliar magic, uttered in some archaic Warlock tongue. He pointed his wand at the thick wall of rock that led to the outside of Burning Peak.
Without warning the wall of the cavern, rippled and shifted until its solidity gave way to complete transparency. The wall just completely evaporated. And Shields and his dragon flew out into the open freedom of Cathedral’s skies. We stood, staring at the fleeing Warlock and his golden pet. But we were all quickly bowled over by a rush of howling wind as the Wyrmrig raced past to take chase.
“Trewlove’s the freakin’ Elder Code carrier?” Shade said, jumping to his feet. His small face showed what we all felt right now: stunned silence.
“Quick!” Portia said. “There’s no time for discussion now. We need to steer those dragons over to Glessie Isle. To Dilwyn Werelamb’s farm.”
“Huh?” I said, placing Fraidy gently inside my jacket. I still couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, and I felt on the verge of losing the plot completely. “What do you mean, Dilwyn’s farm? What are you talking about?”
“Werelamb called while we were herding the drifter here,” Vee explained. “Millie’s there with him. She found something in the Avalon texts, and they have a plan to put Shields’ dragon out of commission.”
Portia shooed Verdantia away. “Go and get the brooms,” the Witch Fearwyn instructed. “Hattie, you and he cats can ride with one of the fairies.”
“What about Jyldrar?” I asked, pointing to the prone man on the floor. The drifter was breathing, but still unconscious.
“I’ll place a call to GIPPD on the way over to Glessie,” she said.
“Can … can we trust the Wyrmrig … I mean, David? Could he hurt us, Portia?”
My head was spinning, my hands shaking, my knees knocking. Too much dramatic action in the space of a few pressurized minutes will do that.
“Well, we didn’t have time to work with him, did we?” She snapped. “It’s going to be a little tricky to convince him to side with us now. In case you didn’t notice we’re in the heart of the action at this moment.”
“But … do you think he even knows us?”
Portia sighed. “Look, I don’t know how he’s going to react to us. We can only hope that there’s a small part of him that still knows his former life, and, if we’re lucky .. the people who mattered to him in that life.”
“But …” But I snapped my mouth shut. I decided to stay quiet and just allow myself to be led by the woman in charge. And, sensing my impotence, my kitties did the same; they looked to Portia for their next instruction.
All I could do is keep looking down at Fraidy, pushing my hand inside my jacket every few minutes to gently to stroke his head and to check for respiration.
Verdantia rushed back in from the tunnel. She threw Portia her stick and handed over the distressed Faery Queen’s ride at the same time. The Witch Fearwyn charged over to the newly appointed exit to the cavern. “I’m going to steer them toward Dilwyn’s. You guys follow but drop back a little. Stay in sight, but back far enough so that if you need to high-tail it out of there, you can. Got it?”
“How are you going to steer them, though?” Verdantia asked.
“By antagonizing them.”
I found my voice then. “Portia, take one of my cats,” I said, looking down at the row of seven dragonsteel-clad heads. “They can sit on the broom backward and guide your moves.” Portia squinted at me. “Trust me, you’ll be happy you took one.”
Jet hopped onto the end of Portia’s broom, uninvited.
“You’re not the deranged fast one, are you?” The old witch quizzed, looking over her shoulder with pursed lips.
“Nope,” Jet lied. You could see he was bursting to say more, but he somehow managed to keep the pandemonium in. His jittery paws were probably about the only sign that could give him away, but as Portia faced forward, she didn’t see these trembling signals.
I have to admit, even in my current state, I vaguely wondered if it was a good idea to have Jet as the Witch Fearwyn’s wing-cat, but before I could even think of mentioning something, the old witch and my cat kicked off and took to the skies to annoy the dragons.
Goddess, please, keep them safe.
I jumped on the back of Vee’s broom, and the rest of my cats hopped onto Hinrika’s ride.
Verdantia looked back at me, and then to the Faery Queen. “Ready?”
“Go,” I whispered, leaning my cheek against Vee’s back.
“Remember to hang back, Hinrika,” Verdantia cautioned the other fairy as she pushed off. Hinrika nodded and followed us out int
o the deepening sky.
I popped my head up over Vee’s shoulder to get a better view of the chase playing out before us. The two dragons, similar in size, but so different in color and appearance, dived and swooped across the sky, firing balls of flame the size of wrecking balls. “Where’s Portia and Jet?” I managed. “I can’t see them.”
“They’re there,” Vee said. “I just saw Jet’s tail. They’re at the front of the …. Look! There!” The elven beauty extended a pale finger to a spot just beyond the governor and his golden dragon.
Portia and Jet whizzed into view. But something wasn’t quite right with the picture.
“They’re upside down,” Vee pointed out, rather helpfully. “I don’t think Jet’s going to get off lightly for this.”
“If we’re not all burnt to a crisp by day’s end, I’m sure my boy will face a certain Fearwyn administered death,” I said.
Verdantia and I looked at the flying duo as they bounced along a series of air pockets in their inverted position. We were still quite some distance away, but I swear I could see a green hew to Portia’s skin.
“It’s working,” Vee said. “The dragons are following them.”
I peered at the two beasts in pursuit of Portia and Jet. Sweet Boy took the lead; Shields riding bareback along the dragon’s neck, as the governor’s pet snapped at the taunting cat and witch pair. The Wyrmrig snaked after the golden lizard, looking incredibly graceful as he curled and weaved through the sky.
The Witch Fearwyn’s broom shot up suddenly and began a crazy spiral upward. I distinctly heard Jet’s ‘Yeeehaaw!’ over the blasting sound of dragon flame and rushing wind.
The two dragons hurtled upward to catch their antagonizing quarry, but Jet’s wingmanship was too quick for even these athletic monstrosities. My zippy kitty’s orchestrated spiraling came to an abrupt end, and Portia’s broom plunged downward at an ever-accelerating speed. The two pulled up just feet above the surface of the Mages; its leaden waves leaping upward to try and pull the pair into its secret depths. The broom kept its one-hundred-and-eighty degree trajectory, and like this, Portia and Jet sped across the Sea of Mages toward our home island.
Me, Vee, Hinrika and the cats followed the strange entourage to the shores of Glessie. Until the edge of Dilwyn’s land came into view just off the side of the coast. We were to take the dragons down to Werelamb’s farmstead. Because the farmer and Millie apparently had some kind of plan.
CHAPTER 17
The scene from the air over Dilwyn’s blew my mind and my heart in one fell swoop. Dusk had blossomed into soft pastels of grays, oranges and moody purples, but it was the flurry of activity below that caught my breath. At first, all the busy migrations just looked like an army of deranged ants; toing and froing all over the place. I could sense the urgency in their movements, even from my current height. Werelamb’s mythical creatures, freed from their tethers, ran amok, squawking, growling, braying, hooting and flapping at the air as if the animals knew something loomed in that atmosphere.
As I neared, the ant's features came into view. Faces. Lots of faces. Of people I knew, respected and loved. I noticed Maude and Horace first. Working together, the pair carried buckets, and zigzagged their way from Dilwyn’s saltwater stream, across the yard to the barely finished merman pool. A yoke straddled the big barman’s shoulders, each end laden with a pail as big as a wine barrel. Maude, with her own small bucket, loped beside her man, veering violently right every ten steps or so. Not spilling a drop from the large wooden buckets he carried, Horace’s beefy arm shot out at intervals, pulling his beloved Maude into him each time she veered off with her two left feet. In this supremely awkward manner, the pair lurched across Werelamb’’s smallholding to where three others were standing. Millie Midge, her face flushed, stood with one foot on the side of the pool. The tank looked to be about half full. If my friends had filled this by hand, then they must have been fetching water all day. No wonder they looked so exhausted. Millie had her nose buried in what was clearly an artifact from the Avalon Vault. My assistant shouted instructions to both Thaddeus Peacefield and Artemus Caves as they fussed with something around the merman pool. I was too far away to see exactly what Artemus and the Reverend were up to, but whatever it was, it looked like the pair needed Millie Midge’s guidance.
Carpathia Alecto and Dilwyn Werelamb came running from behind Maude and Horace, each of the latter two carrying their own vessel of water from Werelamb’s sea-fed brook. Behind them came Gabrielle. My baker friend wheeled a cart filled with an oversized vat of seawater, her strong former-clay arms tensing at the shoulders. The ex-golem looked over her shoulder and shouted something back to the person following her. The wind picked up Gabrielle’s words, and I heard her say: “Are you okay, Violet?” I craned my neck backward and just managed to snag a glimpse of hair artiste, Violet Mulberry, as she emerged daintily from the bushes that divided the stream from the farmhouse. Violet carried her own container of water and held the vessel with a grim determination. Nevermind that it was a small sherry glass, at least our resident coiffeuse was trying.
Styx Werelamb shot into view. The teen sprinted past the hairdresser, slopping a slew of cold seawater on the unsuspecting woman. Violet stopped, her expression horrified at having her hair-do compromised in such a barbaric fashion. Gabrielle turned and gently pushed the woman’s shoulder in a silent plea for speed. I guessed they really needed that sherry-shot of H20.
Portia and Jet came crashing down toward the ground just before the merman pool, making Millie, Thaddeus, and Artemis jump back. My friends looked up just as Vee, me and Hinrika came in for landing. But they didn’t lower their heads to greet us. They stared, mouths open, at the two incoming dragons, and the mad Warlock instead.
I reached into my jacket to touch Fraidy. His body still felt warm, but I couldn’t tell if it was just because he was picking up my body heat. Goddess, I wanted this all to be over. I needed to attend to my boy!
Speaking of ‘boy’s,’ Sweet Boy’s shadow poured over us as his hulk came closer to the earth.
The pool, now almost two thirds full, reflected the winged creature as it spiraled above the water. Shields pulled his dragon up. I could see the governor squinting down at us as he tried to work out what was going on. Tracking his head left, I guess the Warlock Chief didn’t feel threatened by a little water and a few haggard humanoids. He brought his beast down on the other side of the pool from where we were standing.
The earth shuddered below our feet almost immediately, and with the water excited and sloshing in the tank, I turned to see David the dragon come to an ungainly skidding halt on our side of the reservoir. Both beasts, facing one another, pushed themselves up on their back legs until they stood at their full and terrifying respective heights.
Shields leaned forward on Sweet Boy’s neck and whispered something in the dragon’s ear. The beast stuck his neck out over the pool and fired a rush of white-hot flame, the pool hissing and bubbling in the flame’s wake. The Warlock Chief beamed a proud grin in appreciation of his boy’s handiwork.
The Wyrmrig stared; the intelligent light in his eyes dancing only around the edges of his irises.
I dared to hope that it was a good sign that David had landed on our side and that the Wyrmrig recognized the difference between good and evil.
“So what’s the plan, exactly?” I said to Millie out of the corner of my mouth. I kept my eyes fixed on Shields and his beast.
“We need to get them into the pool.”
“What?”
Reverend Peacefield stepped forward. “She’s right, Hattie. We need to get them in the water.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it … but how do we get them in there?”
Millie’s face drained of blood. “We need to get them engaged in battle. We need to catch Shields and his pet off guard.”
I backed off. “Woah,” I said. “Battle? That’s David there, in case you didn’t know.”
“Portia called on her way ov
er and filled us in,” Artemus chimed in. “We know it’s risky, Hattie, but we need to get Sweet Boy in that pool. Trust us on this.”
“Why?” What did you find in those texts, Millie?”
“A spell to turn the governor’s dragon to stone.”
“But what about David? Won’t he turn to stone too if he touches the water?” I was going off this plan more and more by the second.
Millie shook her head of fire highlights. “No, the chief will be fine. It’s only Shields’ dragon who will be petrified. This spell will only work if there’s black diamond in the picture. And the governor’s pet was created using BD tech. So we need them to --”
A whoosh of air over our heads cut Millie off. The Wyrmrig, apparently not content to play childish games of heating a merman pool, swooped across the reservoir toward Shields’ dragon.
Sweet Boy reared up to meet David, and so began an aerial battle of draconian proportions. Two gargantuan bodies of muscle and scale writhed and clawed at one another in the air the tank. Each of the dragons expelling their cataclysm of fire as they battled.
The Wyrmrig howled in pain as Sweet Boy got a clear shot at David’s exposed neck. The golden scaled beast raked his giant claws deep into the chief’s throat. Fat droplets of blood spattered down around us, some landing with a delicate plinking sound in the pond. I could see the scarlet droplets fan outward, tingeing the water a deep red. I reflexively squeezed Fraidy. Looking up again I saw David reverse from his disadvantaged position; his magnificent wings beating away enormous tracts of air as he pulled back. He stared, his eyes black and empty, at his golden-scaled foe. And that’s when the lights in David’s eyes ignited into full-blown fires. The Wyrmrig bellowed an arc of pressurized flame from his mouth and lunged at the governor’s pet. Shields, entirely unprepared for the attack, slid from his ride’s neck and tumbled to the ground next to the pool. He sat up, dazed for a second, but quickly lost consciousness and collapsed in a heap to the floor.
The Wyrmrig flew, full speed, and crashed into the governor’s dragon, grasping Sweet Boy by the throat as soon as he made contact. They wrestled and tumbled like this, falling end over end in the air above us. Sweet Boy dashed to a tree standing just next to the pond. David raced after the dragon immediately and went for the beast’s throat again. The Wyrmrig swung his mighty neck side to side and threw his enemy like a rag doll to the pool below.
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